We have a clear night sky right now, and I observed the moon and the Pleiades quite easily. The stars were a lot further away from the moon than shown in the photo here, though. (And no, I couldn't be bothered going out to take a photo... ;-Þ)

The bright side of the moon is definitely blown out. Light level there is about 1/250 sec @ f8 or 11. The image was shot at f5.6 and 2 sec to get the umbra and the stars.
I bought the lens last week for $14.99 on eBay. I'm happy with it so far. It does pretty good for a zoom with macro.